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Applications are due by November 15, 2005.

iCampus is currently accepting student proposals only. The call for faculty proposals closed in October.

Over the past five years iCampus, the MIT-Microsoft Alliance for research in technology-enhanced education, has awarded almost two million dollars to support projects proposed and carried out by MIT students. iCampus awards are $30,000 per project (plus any necessary MIT overhead).

iCampus student projects are ambitious, innovative efforts -- conceived and carried out by MIT students -- that demonstrate the use of information technology to enhance MIT education, improve the quality of MIT student life, or make an impact on the world at large.

Projects iCampus has supported include:

• the Library Access to Music project, which brings music to MIT dorm rooms via MIT Cable: lamp.mit.edu
• Shuttletrack, which provides real-time tracking for the Safe Ride service shuttletrack.mit.edu
• Interfacing exercise cycles to videogames at Zesiger Sports Center
• Using wireless PDAs to create hydrological measurement field instruments and testing these in rivers in Australia.

Preliminary proposals for student projects that will begin in spring semester 2006 are due on November 15, 2005. Submit proposals using the form included on this web page. Shortly after the due date, we will invite selected preproposals to submit final proposals, and work with them to help them shape their proposals to be more competitive. Final proposals will be due by December 1, and funding decisions will be announced before the end of the fall semester.

iCampus student project guidelines

We are seeking ambitious and innovative proposals: efforts that involve more than just one or two people, and that go on for at least a year. We are especially interested in projects that involve student organizations (such as the GSC, the UA, or SIPB) that would be willing to keep the work alive after the original participants have graduated.

Projects should adhere to the following guidelines:

• Each proposal should be for one-year effort, with clearly defined objectives to be accomplished by (a) the end of the spring semester; and (b) the end of the fall 2006 semester.

• There must be at least two people working on the project, who must be MIT undergraduate or graduate students at least through December 2006.

• You need not submit a detailed budget, but projects should expect to be supported at a level up to $30,000 (plus any necessary MIT overhead). Typical uses for funds are to purchase equipment and to pay UROP salaries. Projects will not pay for graduate RAs.

• Each project must have an advisor, an MIT faculty or staff member, to whom you can go for technical or other expertise.

• Any software developed by the project must be distributed freely and openly, under an open-source license.

Some things you might propose

Here are some suggestions of things that might be suitable for funding. These are just suggestions. They are not meant to limit you in any way:

• Create an experimental system or service that could eventually become part of MIT's educational computing infrastructure, just as many of Athena services were originally developed by student groups. For example, one iCampus student project developed a web-based tracking system for MIT's Shuttletrack service.

• Develop and run a service for the MIT community that makes innovative use of information technology. For example, one iCampus student project is using MIT cable to provide a music library service for the MIT campus.

• Develop technology-based educational materials, either from scratch, or based on existing MIT courses. For example, one iCampus student project created a course in which students adapted PDAs to be field data collection instruments for environmental studies.

• Demonstrate innovative uses of new types of computing/communications platforms (e.g., wireless communications) in a dorm or an ILG or a classroom.

• Use information technology to stimulate collaboration with students at another university, or at several universities. For example, one iCampus student project created DevHood, a web-based collaboration for university students to learn about Microsoft .NET. The site has close to 10,000 users spread across over 400 campuses.

• Look here for the full list of current and previous iCampus student projects

Questions to be answered in preliminary student proposals

• Title for this proposal
  A short, descriptive title for this project

• Name and email address of
  The proposer must be a registered MIT student (graduate or undergraduate). You must supply a valid email address that we can use to communicate with you. List only one address only. This person will be the point of contact for all communications about the proposal.

• Project description
  Please provide a brief (a few paragraphs at most) description of the proposed project.

• Significance
  Describe, as succinctly and as compellingly as you can, why you think this project is significant - from an educational perspective, a technical perspective, or other.

• Key participants
  Who are the key participants in this project? There must be at least one other participant besides the proposer. All key participants must be MIT students, at least through December 2006, and must make a commitment to work on the project through fall 2006.

• Goals for the spring
  List two or three specific milestones to be achieved in the project by May 2006.

• Goals for the first year
  List two or three specific milestones to be achieved in the project by the end of 2006.

• Funding
  What kinds of things are you requesting funding for (e.g., what equipment, UROP positions, other)?

• Advisor
  Who is the project advisor?

• Other
  Any other comments or questions.

Submitting proposals

iCampus student project application form

Questions